1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a character reading apparatus for optically reading address information written on mail or optically reading amount information written on a check in, for example, a mail processing apparatus such as an automatic address reading/sorting apparatus for reading address information written on mail and sorting the mail.
2. Description of the Related Art
An automatic apparatus using an optical characters reading technique, for example, an automatic address reading/sorting apparatus for reading address information written on mail, and sorting the mail has; recently been developed and introduced in a post office, e.g., a central post office.
In such an automatic address reading/sorting apparatus, it is very important to properly detect an address information area as a writing position of address information.
In general, however, there are no specific rules of an address information writing method and the like for mail, and hence address information is written at various positions in various directions.
Furthermore, some mail has an advertisement or a postage stamp on the same surface as address information. In such a case, a wrong area is often mistaken for an address information area.
Under the circumstances, for example, in reading address information written on a large quantity of mail (bulk mail), such as notifications of electricity charges and demands for payment of gas charges, which are mailed from specific companies in large quantities in the same format, the respective address information areas are preregistered to allow proper detection of the address information areas.
A conventional technique for a character reading apparatus, for example, is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-268085.
In a conventional automatic address reading/sorting apparatus, however, an operator manually selects preregistered contents every time a large quantity of mail from specific companies are sorted. Therefore, the efficiency is very poor, and the load on an operator is high. If switching is not properly performed, the sorting efficiency decreases.
That is, when a large quantity of mail from specific companies are to be sorted, the respective address information areas must be preregistered. In addition, every time a given format is changed, switching of preregistered contents needs to be manually performed. For this purpose, an operator needs to be skilled to a certain degree. Furthermore, the operability is very poor, resulting in a decrease in processing efficiency.
If there are many types of mail, an operation to switch the preregistered contents must be performed frequently. As a result, the operation ratio decreases, and the load on the operator increases, posing difficulties for the operator.
As described above, in the field of character reading apparatuses, such as an automatic address reading/sorting apparatus for reading address information and sorting mail, it is important to properly detect read areas. Improper detection of such areas will lead to a deterioration in read performance.
In addition, a conventional technique of a character reading apparatus, for example, the technique disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,978 is known. However, this conventional technique also has the following problems.
As described above, in a conventional character reading apparatus, it is very important to properly detect read areas. Improper detection of such areas will cause a deterioration in the read performance, and hence a deterioration in the performance of an automation apparatus.
In addition, the operability of the conventional character reading apparatuses is very poor, and a decrease in processing efficiency occurs. Moreover, the load on an operator increases.